


Grief of the living

by Garlicbreadbowl



Series: Eklektos Chronicles [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Nonbinary Character, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28294659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Garlicbreadbowl/pseuds/Garlicbreadbowl
Summary: A dark and starless night has Sinoh in yet another spell. Kinda hard not to be when your friend is no longer someone you can stomach, and your best friend is losing himself day by day.
Relationships: Troy Calypso and Original Characters, Troy Calypso/Original Character(s)
Series: Eklektos Chronicles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072481
Kudos: 2





	Grief of the living

Sometimes it was dark.

Not the dark of light's absence. A... _shroud_. A fog. A blanket. Some covering of their senses.

It got dark, and then bright again.

The brightness is worse. It is this all-encompassing glow, twisting and moving and swirling like how they imagine blood moves in veins. The light is all there is, and they can't see it. Only hear the whispers in it, feel the shift of the other minds pressed up against theirs in the cramped reality. The others are calm, and patient, and no words are said but they can feel the confusion and questions from the others. Why they are afraid, why they are restless and at unease. 

They want to speak to them. Whoever the others are. Ask something. The question would come to them at the chance, but it eluded them every instance of daydreaming such an opportunity. 

They didn’t like the voice. 

It's an echo. The language isn't...language. It isn't spoken. Barely written. They feel the soundwaves of it in their own mind, washing over the minds around them. It orders them. Commands.

Guard what we leave behind. 

Guard what we have made.

Guard what we keep chained.

The minds around them agree, there is a round of promise and duty and responsibility. They feel none of it and the others feel towards them, feelings like 'rogue' and 'defective' and 'traitor'. It meant nothing to them, they aren't bound to the promise. But it was like the others don't realize they don't belong. That they are not like them. 

They took a breath. The desk lamp was far too bright, far too warm in color. Ruins down below the mountain called, some silent song luring them down. It's a dark night. The stars were nowhere to be seen. Somewhere in the city, there was life. Music from bars, hum of machinery, loud night crawlers.

They hated this job.

They hated her for making them do it. 

They hated this city. This planet. This cult. This body. This pain. This responsibility. This voice. This darkness. This, this this this this this. 

Sometimes they close their eyes. Hold their breath. Cover their ears. It blocks out the dust, the rust, the gunshots. And they can imagine home again. 

Home was soft. The buildings are made of blue clays and cherry colored roofs. Streets smell of sweet plants or the enticing aroma of the food stalls. Spicy ramen, sugary rice balls with honey, pancakes and meat kebabs they never quite trusted but salivated at. Kujiro had such lovely sounds. Chimes and music. The wind was so peaceful, whistling past the mountains and through the streets. They loved the wind at home. 

They missed their parents. They knew they'd never see them again. Even if Tyreen permitted them to leave this rock, they wouldn't go meet them. They'd have to show them what they were, now. 

The lamp was too bright. They reached over, pulled the string, and a darkness filled the room.

The ECHO at their hip buzzed.

F*ck her. 

They used to be friends. They used to be such good friends. They'd laugh and talk about ghosts and religion and science and history and she'd try and make them feel normal. When she and Sadi started flirting, she’d run to them with all the details, ask what to do when Troy had no idea.

Now she was...

 _F*ck_ her. They miss her, too. 

It buzzed again.

//User:GodKingBling

> You working still?

> Wanna call?

Not tonight. Not when the screams were so close to escaping them. 

//User:Sinnamonroll

> no thank you

//User:GodKingBling

> Bad night again?

//User:Sinnamonroll

> always is lately.

//User:GodKingBling

> I can get a movie ready for when you're done. A few new horror flicks came out, I think you might like them. 

//User:Sinnamonroll 

> okay

//User:GodKingBling

> Hey, I know it's hard for you. If it gets to be too much, I'll have you removed from the team. There's plenty of other people who can figure out where it is. You don't need to be hurting like this.

Troy had no idea that Sinoh had already tried resigning from the department. Tyreen burned the form in front of them. 

They were stuck. 

//User:GodKingBling

> Is it pain, or are you just tired?

//User:Sinnamonroll 

> everything. bad moon tonight i guess. i'll be fine.

//GodKingBling

> I don't believe you, but I'll leave you be. See you tonight, come by whenever you get off work. 

Sinoh set the Echo back down.

Looking around the room was pain. It was vile sickness, they wanted to tear it all down and burn the place to the earth. Every paper scrap, every diagram, every bit of machinery. 

They hated her.

They hated this. 

The clicking of the chitin armor pieces growing from the fleshy cords that compromised their body made their mouth taste coppery with sick that wasn’t there. It was the only thing they _could_ taste anymore. Taste buds and nerves had died with the rest of them. 

They wanted to throw up. They wanted to be _able_ to throw up. 

Sinoh sunk into the chair, tilting their head back at the peeling-paint ceiling. The fan swirled in jerks, broken for months.

Three years. They'd been here since the beginning. But three years ago was when it all started. 

The Pandora Research Department had started when the CoV had the funds for it. Made to discover better ways of living, and to learn about the planet's murky past. About the Eridians. The twins' parents were big on the subject, and so they were too.

It was supposed to do good. But Sinoh existed. Was warped into those stalking constructs. Had knowledge not meant for them.

After a nightmare in that awful waking sleep, they told their friends about it. Troy kept them at his side with an arm around their shoulder, rubbing at theirs with a pained sympathy. 

Tyreen leaned in. Asked more. Prodded.

Smiled.

Wanted to know about all of their dreams. 

That moment was when she started changing. 

They told of a slumbering monster, hidden away somewhere dark. A mouth that couldn't close, a stomach with no end, a hunger with no sustenance.

She asked where it was and they should have said an entirely different universe.

They'd been working to discover the location of the Great Vault for three years. They were a Guardian, they could read and write Eridian. Had knowledge of places even the best researchers didn't know about. Had free access to them. 

Had voices in their head telling them everything they needed to know. 

The voices hated Tyreen, too. 

How words flowed from her, the upturn of her mouth, her eyes widening in mad pleasure as she ripped the life out of someone.

She used to be a friend. 

Tyreen was fierce, always, but her fire burned like a torch, a campsite. Warm, protective, guiding. 

Now, it just destroyed. 

You could look out into the wasteland and see where she'd been. Ashes of peaceful communities who didn't want the handouts in exchange for their worship. Bloodstained forts of the few bandit clans that could see the wolf behind the grin, fangs behind the offered handshake. Anyone who wouldn't bow. 

Sinoh leaned back. Nothing ever settled this feeling. 

Troy tried to. But he was just as tired. 

God. She ravaged him the same as all the other innocents.

If Tyreen was fire, Troy was water. Calm and shy, tactile. He never raised his voice, only savage the few times his sister was in danger. The assassins from the Slagma clan. A man grown hostile at rejected advances. 

Guardians who knew that she was everything they needed to hurt.

Like Sinoh.

Sometimes they hated Troy from snapping them out of it, that one time. 

They were dreaming, again. Slipped into that dark fog, barraged by orders and promises. They spoke to the others, and the surrounding consciousness explained. A devil deep in sleep, our burden we shall keep. 

The others told them about a monster, and the thing that sought to free it. Let it loose and end the world. This depraved creature, this Chain Breaker, was out there, looking for the Ten Thousand Teeth. And Sinoh was close to it. Had an opportunity. 

They were told to fulfill their duty. 

When they awoke from the calculated, murderous stupor, Troy had them pinned to the ground, that heavy arm to their neck. He had a look in his eye, full of alarm and impending regret.

Sadi gave them the run-down while they sat in a jail cell, the Twin Gods ruminating on what to do with them. Sinoh tried to kill Tyreen - and almost did. A thick, deep slash at her torso with blades they didn't even know they had. 

Troy was fully about to kill them, in control of themselves or not, Sadiya said.

It didn't matter what they had then. It wouldn't matter what they had now.

Troy would kill them if they even dared go against Tyreen.

They missed him, too. 

There was no one gentler, even if he played a part that was brash, full of teeth. The first time Sinoh got to be with Troy alone, away from Tyreen's enthusiastic chatter, Horace's deep belly laughs and stories, Sadiya's wicked sarcasm, it was under a dark sky like this one. 

But that night was beautiful. The stars never shined like that again.

They sat on a roof of a bar. Troy drank from a bottle of whiskey imported from Athens, made of Mapleslug honey and aged in Paintwood barrels. It smelled sweet and colorful, so much like the home they could never go back to. 

Troy was always the first to notice something. So he asked. Offered Sinoh a drink even if they couldn't eat or get drunk.

Sitting under a deep night sky, the agony that coated Pandora seemed so far away. They passed the bottle back and forth. Troy told them about Nekrotefayo. His mother's singing and science and her monstrous demise. The callous ignorance of his father who didn't understand either of his children. 

Sinoh didn't have much to say in kind. Their mother was a strict but deeply loving woman, full of care and guidance as well as deserved criticism. Dad, though often busy with work at the marina, never failed to be there when they needed him. They missed them more than anything. If they could just...call them. Tell them they're okay and love them still and miss them. 

But cults aren't fond of you reaching back. 

Troy seemed to feel the same. Said how Tyreen dragged him here by the chain that was his 'brokenness'. How much he missed his parents, mother mostly. 

That was the softest Troy had ever looked. It _had_ to have been. They were miserable and grieving, but they were wallowing alone together. And maybe that was what made them closer. Crying with someone is better than weeping in solitude. Sinoh thought so, anyway. 

They missed him.

Whatever he was now…

...he didn't seem to miss _them_. 

Tyreen came first. She always did. 

Even if she killed them like she threatened all those times, he'd just grin and bear it.

They didn't mean anything, anymore.

Maybe they _never_ did, in the grand scheme of things.

Sinoh opened their eyes, the little glimmer of light peering through the shutters burning and worsening the headache. Surrounded by diagrams and maps and translations and everything that made them wish they could vomit, that stupid ECHO cheeped again. 

//User: GodQueenTyreen

> We find the vault yet?? ;P

They hated her. 

Unlike Troy, she got no response. They unplugged the device from the wall, turned up the brightness all the way and opened every application, activated background running for all of them so the d*mn thing died. 

Sinoh stood from the creaky desk chair, tendons and fleshy cord groaning as they stretched, chitin pieces clicking against each other. The sound of their body moving never fails to frighten them, but they grab their hoodie from the stand anyway. They just need to walk it off. Get some air.

Salvation’s Gate is...not beautiful, but clarifying at night. The thrum of the ruins below never fail to at least center them. If Tyreen threw a tantrum and leeched them, their corpse wasn’t theirs to clean up. It was Troy's, Sadiya's, Horace's. 

If only someone would open their eyes. 


End file.
